I (really) hate BODs.

[Deraj]

Does anyone hate BODs as much as I do?

My most recent bad experience: I noticed I had a lot of footwear BODs. TOR charts show a horned runic kit as the reward for 20/exc/barbed. Bribe up a large. Bribe up some smalls. Probably spend upwards of 100k or so in bribes. The reward? A 120 tailoring scroll. Why is this allowed to happen?

Bulk order deeds are such a horribly designed system, and it's been awful ever since they were introduced. The whole thing is like a bad joke. Why do large orders require small orders to complete? Why does quantity 15 exist, when in almost every category the reward is the same as quantity 10?? Why are these useless rewards assigned to specific quantity/quality/color combinations, effectively making whole categories of BODs completely pointless? It makes no damn sense. And now, the one shining light of truth, hope and redemption in this putrid pit of misery and despair, the TOR rewards chart, isn't even completely accurate anymore. I already have to contend with the RNG for BOD collection, and then bribery, and if after all of that I cannot even know what my reward is going to be, what is the point of even trying?

BODs need an overhaul in a bad way. Honestly they need to work similar to the fishing quests or trade quests, except with a reward list using points earned instead of random junk being handed out for each order turned in. Quantity 15 needs to be wiped off the damn map unless its existence can be reasonably justified. Large orders need to be fill-able without the small order components. Bribing needs to die. I would even go so far as to hope that there could be a multiplayer component as well (since this is an MMO, a fact that seemed to be forgotten with the fishing and trade quests) that involved multiple players filling in mega-huge orders for special-er awards, but I won't hold my breath for that. Lastly, rewards need to scale properly. 2000 valorite ingots for 15 charges of a valorite hammer, really? So not worth it.

I know it's been said that the devs have plans to revamp it eventually, when that will be I have no earthly idea. Could be a year from now. Two years from now. I genuinely hope it's sooner rather than later because until then, the BOD system will continue to exist as an insult to Ultima Online.

 

[Lord Arm]

some people are too lazy to do bods/bribe. it so easy to get the bod u need now. some use a script which really screws the honest player. the new loot has really hurt crafting/bods. if they revamp, can be scripted and give it out like candy, becomes worthless in no time. I do agree, I hate getting something that was not intended because of the bump of reward u can receive but I deal with it. I thought bods system was fine until they came out with new loot that is so good, why even do bods. how will they make it worth while again and can people use cheats. will ec be so much better than cc and cc people get screwed even more. if they change and make it like fishing/trade quest, the scripts will be plentiful. the rewards may need adjustment but to what? I think there are other areas to fix/improve, so many bugs out there.

 

[OREOGL]

They have reward calculators that tell you what you'll get based on filling that particular bod.

In surprised footwear bod even yielded a scroll instead of reward cloth.

 

[Deraj]

They have reward calculators that tell you what you'll get based on filling that particular bod.

In surprised footwear bod even yielded a scroll instead of reward cloth.

Both TOR and Stratics calculator indicate a horned runic kit for a 20/exc/barbed footwear large BOD.

 

[Lady CaT]

Might want to read this from crafting forums.

Preliminary Findings: BOD value variable affecting the rewards. | Stratics

 

[Deraj]

Might want to read this from crafting forums.

Preliminary Findings: BOD value variable affecting the rewards. | Stratics

One more reason to hate BODs.

 

[Fridgster]

Can I have your BODs? Joking aside, yeah the bump can bite you sometimes, however it does once in a while give you a nice surprise as well (turned in a lrg val chain bod and got a val hammer instead of a +60 ancient.) I'm certainly am no saying that the system could use some work and maybe even a complete makeover, however as some have already pointed out there are other things that should take precedent.

 

[Lady Storm]

As of this posting at many Meet and Greets many have asked for changes to the Bod situation. Mesanna has stated there is a change in the works for bods and the way you get the rewards from filling them. She has said a points system where by you would fill out bods and accumulate points twards what you want and get exactly what your after. Also I myself have asked that she change the bulk order books to be counted as 1 item in your pack no matter the bod count inside. She is considering all options for a better system.

 

[Deraj]

As of this posting at many Meet and Greets many have asked for changes to the Bod situation. Mesanna has stated there is a change in the works for bods and the way you get the rewards from filling them. She has said a points system where by you would fill out bods and accumulate points twards what you want and get exactly what your after. Also I myself have asked that she change the bulk order books to be counted as 1 item in your pack no matter the bod count inside. She is considering all options for a better system.

Part of the reason that bulk orders present such a storage problem is because of the fact that large orders require small orders to fill, thus requiring the stockpiling of orders. The points system will be an improvement, but I sincerely hope that the RNG element is either minimized or utilized within reason. At the end of the day, the randomness is my main beef with all of this.

 

[OREOGL]

As of this posting at many Meet and Greets many have asked for changes to the Bod situation. Mesanna has stated there is a change in the works for bods and the way you get the rewards from filling them. She has said a points system where by you would fill out bods and accumulate points twards what you want and get exactly what your after. Also I myself have asked that she change the bulk order books to be counted as 1 item in your pack no matter the bod count inside. She is considering all options for a better system.

If they move to a points system they should get rid of having to match small bods to the big ones.

Each should be their own separate bod.

Otherwise I can just see people scripting low end bids to get the rewards which is going to tank what little market there is for runics.

 

[Lady Storm]

As far as i know from being at a few of the meets and reading the transcripts here.. you will still need to fill out the large bods to get the max of points..... I cant see someone doing 1000's of a single small bod just for a hammer or sewing kit...
Smalls wont be that big a point I would gather, the larges I can see a nice amount as they are worth a higher gift.
What this will be is like this example:
a single bod = 10 pts
4 piece lg bod = 100 pts
Now mind you this is not what was said but what I gleemed off the convo of the dev and the players.
Mesanna was quite clear this will only help the players earn a way to get a higher up gift by combining points of lesser bod turn in's.
Clearly not a runaway gift machine..

 

[Lord Arm]

As far as i know from being at a few of the meets and reading the transcripts here.. you will still need to fill out the large bods to get the max of points..... I cant see someone doing 1000's of a single small bod just for a hammer or sewing kit...
Smalls wont be that big a point I would gather, the larges I can see a nice amount as they are worth a higher gift.
What this will be is like this example:
a single bod = 10 pts
4 piece lg bod = 100 pts
Now mind you this is not what was said but what I gleemed off the convo of the dev and the players.
Mesanna was quite clear this will only help the players earn a way to get a higher up gift by combining points of lesser bod turn in's.
Clearly not a runaway gift machine..

point system, this will only screw the honest players, scripters win again. at least the bribe system helps make the cheaters have to be there, unless this is scripted too lol.
I would like to see the books only take one storage and new rewards. the new loot is/was so good, I wonder what they will do. will they make my many years of collecting bods worthless? what ever they do, it needs to stop the bod filling scripts or more people will quit or cheat. can anyone guess what they will do? will they look at cc and ec use or will one client get screwed.

 

[Deraj]

You have it backwards. Every time you add an arbitrary obstacle to confound those dastardly scripters, all you're doing is making it harder for the non-scripters, meanwhile the scripters are laughing because with a few readjustments of a script they're back on track, and now you have created a situation where the non-scripters have it harder, and the scripters are still cruising. In any case, the process of scripting BOD-filling is, in my eyes, irrelevant. BODs are just a process of converting ingots into crafting tools. If you are truly concerned with the effects of scripting, then you need to either implement an intelligent, non-monotonous challenge to BODs or you need to start at the source, which is to say, mining.

A points system would be a god send because it removes the uncertainty that makes BODs not worth doing.

 

[Lord Frodo]

Getting BODs is as easy as logging in and hitting Ctl SHIFT, get BODs log out and log in next char. Now that is so hard for a non scripter.
Make items for BODs is easy with the new crafting menu and yes a scripter mat make things a little faster but I do not think so.
Filling BODs are a piece of cake with UOA and from what I understand with the EC also.

With the changes/program UO has done I really do not see where scripters have a lot of advantage over a honest player when it comes to getting and filling BODs and with the BRIBE system in place it is easy getting high-end BODs now.

Now the only thing that a scripter may have an advantage in is turning in the BODs and getting a new one in return.

I love the idea of a point system because the worse part is Horned Sewing Kits and damn 120 Tailor scrolls.

 

[Deraj]

The only meaningful advantage a scripter will have is that they will have a larger stock of ingots (presumably gathered through script-mining), allowing for more ingots to be processed into crafting tools over the non-scripter. This is why I say that any concerns about scripting need to focus on mining rather than BODs.

 

[Lady Storm]

MyDear Lord Arm
While i agree if you take it the wrong way, you might see scripting gone wild.....
But you missed the whole point...
I do not see scripters gaining much ground as in the way it was discribed... a single bod type as such like a 10 ct cloth bonnet will be a small number of points... where as a 20 exp barbed lg will be a huge amount of pts....
I see no scripting of bods in this mix.
But then again I say why not wait until the system goes up for testing and try it out? Give the Dev the chance to make something before you turn it all into a mole hill you cant dig your tush out of....
It just might be worth the wait.

 

[Lord Arm]

when it goes to testing, its already developed and probably too lol.so whats the reason for a point system that would really help the script bod fillers when u can bribe any bods u may need? it makes no sense. if they made it where it cant be scripted, u have to be there then point systems would work. I wont go into pincos/ec compared to cc. the only real way to fix the bod system is to stop cheating, bottom line. whether its minning the ingots, filling bods what ever. I don't think people realize how fast, how many they can fill compared to the honest player. thank god for bribing. I'm not sure what reward changes should or will happen but there is no reason for the point system when u can bribe and get the bod u need.

 

[MoxZinnia]

Wait, is bribery usable? I read that it goes ever steeper the more it is used, so I haven't been using it. My bank box pretty much has nothing in it but BODs at this point. If I could use bribery I could maybe start turning in some of the large BODs. How often do people use bribery? Does it reset after a while, or something?

 

[Deraj]

the only real way to fix the bod system is to stop cheating, bottom line.

No, no, no. That is not the problem with the BOD system and I have demonstrated that it is fundamentally flawed and has been since it was introduced. Let's recap the problems with the design of the BOD system:

1. Large orders require small orders to fill - A problem since day one. Before bribing, extremely difficult to acquire components without having multiple smiths collecting BODs, trading was unreliable. After bribing, easier but still unreliable for non-maxed BODs.
2. Rewards tied to specific BODs - This effectively makes whole categories of BODs nearly useless, or less valuable to do. Why on earth would anyone do a large weapon bulk order? Why bother with, say, a 10/norm 4-part cloth for a stretched hide? (if your answer to that is bribe it up, then what's the point of having a 10/norm 4-part cloth in the first place??)
3. Rewards sometimes change for higher level BODs - Another layer of uncertainty in this whole mess. If I am going through the trouble of working an LBOD with a specific reward in mind for a specific purpose, and I cannot even be certain that I will receive that reward after 100k in bribes (possibly even more if you're going for a non-maxed BOD), why should I even bother trying?
4. Quantity 15 - Take a look at the reward charts. Notice how in almost every category, quantity 10 and quantity 15 have the exact same rewards. Explain to me then, what on god's green earth is the purpose of quantity 15, if not as a giant "screw you" to crafters? It's like the guy who designed BODs in the first place literally hated the players.
5. Bribing is another layer of uncertainty - Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that bribing makes this horribly designed system somewhat palatable, but once again, if you're aiming for non-maxed out BODs there is yet another layer of uncertainty in trying to bribe up component BODs for an LBOD. More likely than not, you'll spend far more than necessary because a small BOD gets upgraded in the wrong way so you have to upgrade another.
6. Bulk Orders are a storage problem - Combine many of the problems above, and you create an environment where people are saving their BODs more than they are doing them. Frankly I am not opposed to changing BOD books to 1 storage unit each, but I will bet you dollars to donuts if you resolved the above problems, BODs would be less of a storage problem because players would be doing them more and saving them less.

Here is how BODs should work: players acquire BODs like they currently do, with the quality/quantity/material being random, and the max values improving over time as they complete more BODs for a specific town (again, similar to trade / fishing quests). The player fills out the BOD without the hassle of matching small orders to large orders, allowing them to just play the game without arbitrarily waiting for components. The player turns in the BOD for points, which they can later redeem for advanced crafting tools, giving every BOD value, unlike the current system. The player does not engage in the unethical practice of bribing, and does not need to waste gold on fixing intrinsically worthless BODs (since all BODs now have value). The player heads to the blacksmith guild to acquire their advanced crafting tools, retrieving the precise tools that they are seeking so they can continue with their planned work without the hassle of random non-sense. Finally, the player takes BODs that they cannot complete at the moment due to low resources or time, and they put them in a BOD book. The BOD book is incredibly light because, due to the fact that every BOD has value, and due to the fact that the arbitrary requirements of filling them are no longer present, it is no longer as necessary to store BODs for all the arbitrary reasons of our current mess, allowing the player to save some space and have less BODs to trudge through when they want to do some crafting work.

Bulk order deeds are fundamentally broken. Scripting is absolutely not the biggest problem.

 

[Deraj]

Wait, is bribery usable? I read that it goes ever steeper the more it is used, so I haven't been using it. My bank box pretty much has nothing in it but BODs at this point. If I could use bribery I could maybe start turning in some of the large BODs. How often do people use bribery? Does it reset after a while, or something?

Bribing costs will reset after awhile.